Study methods for reading a book

I bought Aaron Copland's Music and Imagination to try to incorporate more emotional and expressive elements into my piano playing. However, when I read different books, I have written down useful information but fail to put the information into practice. Does anyone have any way around this? My piano teacher thinks it might be down to my neurodiversity.

  • Why and who needs the technique of fast reading? The first and most important thing that the idea of fast reading brings to mind is the enormous savings in time, especially for those who, by their activities, have to process large amounts of printed information. It will produce amazing results if you have a fast reading technique with a high level of comprehension and memorization, combined with time management skills. Personally, I have years of experience in this area. And recently, I came up with the idea to take down the best practices and share my experiences. To do this, I downloaded Vidmate at www.apkdojo.com/vidmate, as uploading videos to social networks will be more convenient.

  • Blues player faces - that's great, I really needed to laugh today and you got me there.

  • Hello, have you heard of the app Speechify? The app converts text to speech and reads it aloud for you.

    https://speechify.com/home-abtest-4/?deviceId=F1s2aEWss2NttI3MUSpE_q&var=modifiedScripts

    Hopefully this might help. The app is available for download on the App Store and has good reviews from both dyslexic people and ADHDer’s.


    What other piano music do you play or compose?

  • ok do it again, but this time with emotion. let us see your personality come through this time... lol always made no sense to me. just play. the emotion comes through whether you like it or not. thats your style. some people are very expressive, some are technical. you could mask by pulling blues player faces at your tutor while you play. but getting the right notes in the right order at the right time is the important bit.

  • I might suggest most Artists are NeuroDivergent. 

    As an analogy, let's use Physics. We might all be able to grasp the understanding of an idea of gravity or an idea of a cylindrical universe, or how magnets repel and attract, and we may appreciate poetic thoughts on the stuff, buy books on it and journals, but may lack that innate quality that some are born with to take an idea in physics and expand on it. 

    This same thing applies to Music. Scientific microphones exist to study the earth. I might be able to use these to collect and record data. But I may not know how to use these to make field recordings which others would enjoy listening to.

    I might be able to enjoy learning the guitar or take voice lessons or piano. But to expand creatively on the techniques is a WHOLE other process. It isn't a requirement to enjoying music or learning how to play. I can sing karaoke in a bar or bring a guitar to a jam session at a festival. I can play a few jazz tunes at a party on someone's piano. 

    Emotion and Expression is like "Alchemy". Taking fundamental tools and learned ideas and transmuting them into something else entirely. Not everyone has a knack for chemistry, for cooking, expanding upon science, creating a new miracle cure or developing a new concept in philosophy. Allistic and Autistic alike.

    To add: Find enjoyment the process of learning. This is what Music and Art can offer. A moment of being in the moment.  A monotropic indulgence.

  • I'm presuming you are reading music while you play? If so, then you could use coloured highlighter pens to mark passages of music and create a scheme for the colours to map to certain types of advice as to emotional expression. 

  • I don't know the method of putting advice into practice. For me it seems like I have to put one advice in practice at a time but I always lose momentum even trying to keep with that one advice.

  • You need to say whether you have difficulty remembering the various pieces of advice, or if you have a mental block preventing you putting the advice into practice.

  • Would an audiobook version, listened to while playing, have an influence? Trying things out while in that overlap between flow-state and taking in the words. Hopefully some useful moments of synchronicity would emerge.